The algorithm finally spit out a winner. For weeks, the Ibrox faithful have been staring at the pitch like a line of code that refused to compile, waiting for their expensive Portuguese import to do something other than take up space on the balance sheet. On Saturday, Youssef Chermiti didn't just perform. He optimized.

Rangers 3, Hearts 0. On paper, it looks like a routine hardware upgrade. In reality, it was a brutal debugging of a Hearts side that had spent the last month masquerading as legitimate title contenders. The Edinburgh outfit arrived in Glasgow with the smug energy of a Series A startup that just closed a funding round, sitting atop the table and looking down at the legacy players. They left looking like a legacy system after a ransomware attack.

Let’s talk about the hardware. Chermiti cost money. Real money. The kind of money that makes board members sweat through their tailored suits when the ROI doesn't show up in the first fiscal quarter. Before this weekend, the young striker was trending toward "overpriced peripheral" status. Fans were already looking for the receipt. Then, the 20th minute happened. A low cross, a slight pivot, and a finish so clinical it felt like it was rendered in Unreal Engine 5.

It wasn't just a goal. It was a proof of concept.

The second goal was the one that really broke the "market leaders." Hearts had been playing a high-line defensive trap that functioned about as well as a 2014 firewall. Chermiti skipped past it with a burst of speed that shouldn't belong to a player of his frame. He slotted it home, and the Ibrox crowd—usually a group of people who find joy about as easily as a tech support agent on a Friday afternoon—actually sounded like they believed in the product again.

The hat-trick was the cherry on a very expensive, very cynical cake. A header. Simple. Effective. No fluff. Just the raw execution of a task he was programmed for. Three goals. Three points. A complete disruption of the current hierarchy.

But let’s get into the friction. This win doesn't mean the "Rangers Platform" is suddenly stable. Far from it. The trade-off for this sudden surge in performance is a midfield that still looks like it’s running on a 56k modem. There’s a massive gap between the backline and the creative core that better teams—teams with actual functioning logic—will exploit. Hearts just weren't that team today. They played with the tactical sophistication of a toaster.

The specific cost of this victory isn't just the millions paid out to Everton for Chermiti’s services. It’s the expectation. By showing what the system is capable of when the star recruit actually engages, the manager has backed himself into a corner. You can’t go back to 1-0 grinds after this. You’ve shown the users the premium features; they won't go back to the freemium version without a riot.

Hearts, meanwhile, have some serious soul-searching to do. Being "leaders" in this league is often just a matter of who hasn't collapsed yet. They hit a wall at Ibrox, and that wall was wearing a blue shirt and 15-million-pound expectations. Their defensive structure collapsed under the first sign of real stress testing. If they want to be more than a temporary glitch at the top of the table, they’ll need to figure out why their "disruptive" tactics look so much like a standard 4-4-2 when someone actually runs at them.

The press box was full of people talking about "momentum" and "turning points." Don’t buy it. Momentum is what happens when you have a functioning supply chain and a product that works every time you flip the switch. Rangers haven't achieved that yet. They’ve just had one very good, very loud product launch.

Chermiti walked off with the match ball, looking like the only person in the building who wasn't surprised by the outcome. He’s the shiny new tool in a toolbox that’s mostly filled with rusted wrenches and half-broken screwdrivers. It’s a nice tool. It’s a powerful tool. But one good afternoon doesn't fix a broken infrastructure.

Rangers fans will go home happy, convinced the patch has finally been installed. They’ll ignore the flickering lights and the weird buzzing sound coming from the engine room for another week. But the question remains: Can Chermiti keep the system running, or is he just a high-end component in a machine that’s destined to overheat by December?

I guess we'll see if the fans are still cheering when the subscription bill comes due.